Roasted Delicata, Apple and Arugula Salad with Avocado and Lemon Vinaigrette

 

As a huge Fall fanatic, I am trying not to jump the gun and use every type of pumpkin, squash and gourd I can get my hands on. Summer is still here and its produce is still delicious. As a way to ease into the new season, I use an old summer recipe and swap just a few ingredients to make the perfect transition salad. In this particular recipe, I use squash and apples instead of corn and tomatoes. Enjoy!

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Eggplant Braised with Cherry Tomatoes and Garlic

For those who love to cook, there is possibly no outing quite as enjoyable as a trip to the farmers’ market. Getting to see what’s at its peak and speak with the people who grew it feels like a privilege in comparison to shopping at the grocery store.

I like to go without a plan, grab whatever looks best and then spend my walk home daydreaming about what I can make. While I have a terrible memory when it comes to things like names, my brain has a crystal clear index of every recipe I’ve ever read, most of the ingredients within it and where I can find it. It also catalogs all food images from places like Instagram and food magazines.

This week, when I scored the most beautiful, deeply purple eggplants with taut, shiny skin and cherry tomatoes so sweet I could have popped an entire pint as if they were berries, I was reminded of a picture I’d seen on Canal House’s Instagram feed.

These days, I prefer to cook from pictures rather than recipes. The former allows for creativity and spontaneity, while the latter is time consuming (re-referring to the written word) and/or disappointing (I usually know how to produce the flavors I prefer). As the famous Italian chef Lidia Bastianich said in a recent interview, “Release yourself from the recipe!”

So, with that in mind, I hit my kitchen to make a braised eggplant dish sweet with cherry tomatoes, rich with olive oil, and spicy with garlic and red pepper flakes. Chris and I sat down to dinner with the dutch oven between us, a fresh ball of burrata cheese, sliced crosswise and drizzled with our best Italian extra virgin olive oil, and pan-fried and garlic-rubbed peasant bread to serve as a bed for it all. I also made a shaved fennel and arugula salad showered with plenty of lemon juice and more olive oil because I always like to have something bright to cut through something so rich.

This is the rustic fair that dreams are made of.

EGGPLANT BRAISED WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND GARLIC

Ingredients
2 small to medium eggplant
4 cloved garlic, thinly sliced
¼ tsp red chile flakes
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 pints cherry tomatoes, left whole
Several handfuls of basil, torn
1 ball burrata or a couple of balls of fresh mozzarella (optional)
Grilled or pan-fried and bread rubbed with garlic (peasant loaf, ciabatta, or any other bread you like)
Salt and pepper

Directions
Prep the eggplant: Peel long strips down the eggplant from stem to end, leaving them with a zebra print. Next, make a partial slit lengthwise down the center of the eggplant but try not to cut all the way through. This is just so the flavorful broth has an easier time penetrating the eggplant. Season them lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper, massaging them into the eggplant a bit.

Preheat a braising pot over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once hot, pan fry the eggplants, turning them every two minutes until they are well-browned on all sides. Remove them to a plate.

Add remaining two tablespoons olive oil and add 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves and a generous pinch of red pepper flakes. Once garlic is very lightly golden, add in the 2 pint whole cherry tomatoes, a generous pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper, and stir to combine. Place top on braising pot and let it do its thing over medium-low heat.

After about 20 minutes, most of the cherry tomatoes will have popped open, producing a juicy liquid. Taste it and correct seasoning with more salt if necessary. Carefully add the eggplant into the juicy tomatoes, slit side up and ladle a little of the braising liquid inside the eggplant. Add a sprig of basil, pushing it into the liquid, cover and continue to braise for 20 minutes. At this point, the eggplant will be meltingly tender and flavorful.

To serve, remove the sprig of basil and add a fresh shower of leaves over the braise. Present the whole pot on the table with several spoons to dig in, grilled garlic-rubbed bread and burrata or sliced fresh mozzarella. Enjoy!

Serves 4 (Any leftovers can be smashed into a delicious pasta sauce for later in the week!)

Rian’s Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut squash soup with greek yogurt and arugula

Fall is in the air! The leaves on the trees are becoming as vibrantly colorful as this season’s offerings at the farmer’s market. It’s officially time to swap stone fruit for sweet and crunchy apples, trade summer squash for the butternut squash, and switch from pea shoots to brussel sprouts. Fall is a warm invitation for comfort; a time for greeting the familiar scent of a bonfire, sipping spiced tea, firing up the oven for roasts and braises.

Food plays such a large role in why I love the fall. Harvest time provides bountiful offerings, a plethora of seasonal recipes for savory, hot meals, and a prolonged sense of happiness and nostalgia as a result from eating such dishes.  Pumpkin bread, roasted mushrooms and pork tenderloin with homemade spiced-apple chutney never fail to bring me back to a happy place from my childhood. I remember the joy of submerging myself into the warmth and scents of a welcoming home after walking through the front door on a blustery day. All of these meals are treasured for the memories they carry with them, but in the end nothing comes close to the comfort I remember of curling up on the couch with a bowl of warm, spiced butternut squash soup.

I recently returned home one evening, exhausted from a long day, only to find that my roommate Rian, of What We Eat, had easily whipped up a small meal. The soup was ready and waiting for me while an armchair and a cozy blanket beckoned from the corner. I filled up a bowl and joined in watching a film, but was immediately transported to another place when I tried a spoonful of soup. Creamy in consistency, deeply herbaceous, slightly sweet, and lightly spiced with nutmeg, accented by a subtle heat achieved by a dash of cayenne. This meal embodied that fall represents, all in a 12 ounce serving.

With love, Kristina 🙂

Rian’s Squash soup

  • 1 onion
  • 2 carrots
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 2 cups butternut squash
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/4th teaspoon nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • pepper to taste
  • parmesan cheese rind (or grated parmesan if you do not have)

The secret to this soup is to add depth of flavor by deeply caramelizing the onions. Roughly chop the onion and put into a pot with some olive oil on medium-high heat.

Once the onions have achieved some good color, add in chopped carrots and chopped butternut squash and sauté until they are tender, about ten minutes. At this point add in chopped garlic, cumin and nutmeg. Cook for a few minutes longer so that the spices can toast and then add the chicken stock.

For an amazing umami flavor, place a parmesan cheese rind into the pot with the rest of the ingredients. If you do not have a rind, a little grated parmesan added in before blending will be fine too. Allow the soup to come up to a simmer for about ten minutes and then remove from the heat.

Remove the rind now, or add in the grated parmesan. Blend the soup to a thick pureed consistency, either by using an immersion blender or a regular blender. Be careful of splatters if you do not have the patience to wait until the soup has cooled. At this point adjust by adding more liquid if the soup is very thick. To serve, ladle into bowls and garnish with toasted bread, (I love mine rubbed with garlic and chopped into croutons) a dollop of Greek yogurt or a sprinkling of fresh herbs such as parsley, cilantro or basil.